From the great white north

[Models By Night]

OK not so North 43.6° N 😄

I'm new here but not to Astronomy , I've seen Halley's Comet twice oops once. Actually went to Mile High city of Denver to try and see it but it was cloudy. But lucked out they had an observation night at the 20 Inch Chamberlin Observatory. Got to see the moon and even take a picture with my Film Camera just pointing at the eye piece , it actually turned out OK.When I got my first 3" mirror Newtonian and started getting serious, I wrote a letter to Palomar Observatory asking to view with their small 200" Telescope. They actually replied back with a nice letter and  brochure of images with various telescopes and recommendation to contact local astronomy groups for observation nights.I lived in a Bortle 1 location for 10 years which was also 1,000m above sea level.

Last year I started doing Astro photography, learned to use Sequator to stack photos but I need to improve and since I got my 85mm f/1.8 lens the weather has been either cloudy or too cold.

I got rid of my 2 telescopes, and have only been using camera or binoculars recently. I had no idea that you could actually get good results with photo stacking. but I am in the process of upgrading to a tracking mount. but will need help  going forward.

I am also a professional Photographer with models (people) but not with Deep Sky objects. One of my first coolest views with my 4.5" equatorial mount Newtonian was Saturn, it at first did not look like saturn, it was an oval with two holes near the edges. I remember seeing pictures when Galileo was looking at Saturn https://attic.gsfc.nasa.gov/huygensgcms/Shistory.htm

My all time Fav is 2.2 Million Light Years away (current distance is 2.537 million, I assume current distance measurements have improved) I don't recall when and if it changed from 2.2 to 2.5 as I took a long brake from Astronomy. My project is to try and capture it. also Jupiter and the Galilean moons, which I have seen many times.

Zip to March 2023 I picked up a EQM-35 mount, a few days ago, to use with my Nikon Z7ii and my 85mm f/1.8 lens

Still need

1. Power Supply to 12 volts to it so it actually starts working

2. Better mounting setup for my camera.

3. and the most important thing clear warmer nights to actually try and use it.

Which is not easy when the sky is Bortle 7+

 

[Marvin Jenkins]

Welcome to a great place full of friendly people.

Marv

[wookie1965]

A warm welcome to SGL 

[Floater]

Welcome. Hope you have lots of fun. 🙂

[bosun21]

A warm welcome to SGL. There’s a lot of experienced astrophotographers on here who I’m sure will help you out.

[Sunshine]

Welcome to SGL!

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Bedfordshire 🙂